School Bans Black Students From “African” Hair Styles

A new hair and dress code policy of a Kentucky high school gained national attention.

The policy states among other things that:

Hair must be clean and neat at all timesHair Styles that are extreme, Distracting or attention-getting will not be permittedNo Dreadlocks, Cornrows, twists, mohawks or jewerlry will be worn in hairHair must be Natural hair colorReading over this policy, it is clearly an attempt to keep Black and Brown students from expressing themselves. They could have made this easier and just said ” NO Black Hairstyles.”

It’s not that other people don’t wear dreadlocks or braids, but they are typically seen as black hairstyles. Over the past few years the “fro-hawk” has become a very popular style among black male youth, along with allowing ones hair to dread.

Braids and cornrows have always been popular hairstyles in the black community at large. To say that it is against a school district’s dress code to have natural hair as a black and brown person is a blatant attempt to discriminate against said students.

The school has caught backlash over their new policy. Kentucky State Rep. Attica Scott put the school on blast on her twitter.
Rep. Scott wrote on her twitter account ” So, my daughter had registration today, and let’s just say she’s not happy at #JCPS no natural hair policy.”

JCPS responded with ” Hi, Mrs. Scott. Not a JCPS policy. It’s a policy approved by the SBDM council. There is a process for review.”

Personally, I feel the school board should have never passed such a measure that obviously was intended to discriminate against black students. They had to have seen this coming, and if they did not intend on receiving the backlash that they have for their discriminatory policy, I think that speaks even more to the undertones of racism in their policies.